Motherhood
On 1 June 1954, Shand Kydd married John Spencer, Viscount Althorp (later the 8th Earl Spencer) at Westminster Abbey. They had five children:
- Lady Sarah McCorquodale (19 March 1955), who married Neil Edmund McCorquodale, a nephew of Raine, Countess Spencer
- Jane Fellowes, Baroness Fellowes (11 February 1957), who married Baron Fellowes.
- The Honourable John Spencer, who died within 10 hours after his birth on 12 January 1960
- Diana, Princess of Wales (1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997), first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales
- Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer (20 May 1964), who married Victoria Lockwood, then Caroline Freud (née Hutton) (the latter formerly the wife of Matthew Freud)
The British media made comparisons between the lives of Shand Kydd and Diana because they were both inexperienced young women who were thrust into the spotlight by marriage to much older men in higher stations. Her marriage to Viscount Althorp was not a happy one and, in 1967, she left to be with Peter Shand Kydd, an heir to a wallpaper fortune whom she had met the year before. Subsequently, she was named "the other woman" in Janet Shand Kydd's divorce action against her husband.
A former official officer of Diana, Princess of Wales considered the inquest claims of a rift between Frances and the Princess to be "nonsense". This officer released letters about a strong and loving relationship that existed between Frances and her daughter. Diana had saved her mother from drowning and thought of her as her "best chum".
Read more about this topic: Frances Shand Kydd
Famous quotes containing the word motherhood:
“The problem, thus, is not whether or not women are to combine marriage and motherhood with work or career but how they are to do so—concomitantly in a two-role continuous pattern or sequentially in a pattern involving job or career discontinuities.”
—Jessie Bernard (20th century)
“Work is a responsibility most adults assume, a burden at times, a complication, but also a challenge that, like children, requires enormous energy and that holds the potential for qualitative, as well as quantitative, rewards. Isn’t this the only constructive perspective for women who have no choice but to work? And isn’t it a more healthy attitude for women writhing with guilt because they choose to compound the challenges of motherhood with work they enjoy?”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“In a world where women work three times as hard for half as much, our achievement has been denigrated, both marriage and divorce have turned against us, our motherhood has been used as an obstacle to our success, our passion as a trap, our empathy for others as an excuse to underpay us.”
—Erica Jong (20th century)